“The fact that you can’t lose weight is not your fault, but diets”

At one time, my colleagues and I created individual nutrition programs for clients that took into account their lifestyle, habits, tastes, needs and health status. These programs had little in common with traditional diets: our clients could choose from a rather extensive list of products. No, we did not encourage «food promiscuity», but rather instilled in customers a desire for freedom in this area. We reminded them of the need to follow their own eating style, formed taking into account the psychological and physical characteristics. Every week, the clients’ well-being improved, and as a result, each of them saw on the scales the number they were striving for.

But, as sad as it is to admit, after the end of our joint work, some clients gained weight again. It turned out that many simply could not follow our instructions for a long time. After analyzing this experience, we created an intuitive eating technique based on trust in your body, the ability to listen to it and correctly read the signals of the body.

Intuitive Eating: Basic Principles

1. Develop the ability to listen to your feelings

I often hear, “Intuitive eating is eating what you want, anytime, and as much as you want, right? I do that, but for some reason I don’t lose weight. ” This is not entirely true. Yes, you should choose those foods that you like, but it is absolutely not necessary to follow a strict diet. But for those who completely abandon self-control and stop paying attention to the most important signals of the body, inevitable disappointment awaits. You must clearly understand when you are hungry and when you are full.

2. Be honest with yourself

Admit that you want to lose weight — there is nothing to worry about. But in order to achieve the goal, you need to focus on your relationship with food, and not on weighing. Weight is external, and attention to one’s own body is internal. The source of the problem is in you, and you need to work with it.

Imagine a computer on which several programs are running at the same time, but only one can be active on the monitor screen at a given moment. Your weight is a background program that is running but not active right now. The main part of your “working memory” should be occupied by a program for building relationships with food.

3. Listen to and respond to body signals

Let’s say you ate a larger breakfast than usual. What did it lead to? Did the state of saturation last longer? Would you choose the same food and the same amount of food under the same circumstances? It is extremely important to ask yourself these questions, analyze the answers to them and draw conclusions.

4. Don’t aim for «optimum» weight

How much should you weigh? Nobody knows the answer to this question. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans have been published in the United States for decades. In the 1990 edition, for the first time, recommendations for achieving and maintaining «ideal weight» were excluded, since no one knows the exact figure. The 2010 edition used body mass index (BMI), but this concept has also been criticized since it does not take into account the ratio of muscle to body fat. Muscles weigh more, which is why many professional athletes have high BMI values, which automatically categorizes them as obese people.

I am closer to the concept of a natural, healthy weight. This is the weight you maintain with adequate nutrition (when you are not dieting) and a normal level of physical activity.

5. Don’t expect a «quick fix»

The main myth about proper nutrition and weight loss is that there is an “emergency remedy”, foods that speed up metabolism, “fast” diets, “magic” pills. But these remedies don’t work, at least not in the long run.

It is important to look for what is right for you, choose products consciously, slowly and with pleasure absorb cooked dishes, move with pleasure and not chase after a “quick” result.

HOW TO RETURN YOUR PLEASURE FROM FOOD?

1. Ask yourself what you really want to eat. Satisfaction comes when you clearly understand what you want, give yourself unconditional permission to eat it and eat calmly.

When we are about to start a new diet, we hardly wonder what exactly we want now: sweet or salty, crunchy or creamy, solid or liquid, hot or warm. After all, the basic principle of the diet is to eat what we are told.

2. Eat «here and now.» Worried about the future (“what will I eat, how will I lose these calories”), we rarely pay attention to the process of eating food and therefore do not feel the taste of food, do not savor it.

Europeans hold the palm in terms of mindful eating. The lunch break in many countries is long enough to take your time choosing, savoring and appreciating the food.

Americans, like many Russians, often have lunch right at their workplace (15 minutes if you’re lucky), while browsing social networks or email. Eating without being distracted by reading, checking mail, writing SMS or watching videos is unusual for many and therefore difficult, but this must be learned.

3. Don’t eat if you’re not hungry. How often do you finish dessert, although after the first spoon you realized that it was so-so? One of the great beauties of intuitive eating is the ability to refuse food you don’t like. This is easy to do if you really feel the taste of food, are fully present in the process of eating it and know for sure that you can always eat whatever you want. Always be guided by the motto: “If you don’t like it, don’t eat it, but if you like it, savor it.”

For more on this, see Eveline Tribol and Alice Resch, Intuitive Eating. A new revolutionary approach to nutrition. No restrictions, no rules, no diets.”